Martha’s Vineyard high school students compete in design challenge

Before the next power outage, it might prove helpful to get acquainted with Kyle Joba-Woodruff and Michael Schroeder. The two students recently teamed up to build a flashlight that took first place in an engineering design competition at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

Science teacher Natalie Munn and math teachers Catherine DeGrandpre and Dawn Nelson launched the new activity this year. Students sign up to compete in meets centered around a different engineering design challenge each month.

Based on the idea of emergency items needed for bad storms, and with Hurricane Sandy and winter storm Athena fresh in everyone’s minds, November’s challenge was to build a flashlight.

Students were given 45 minutes to work on their flashlights, which were then measured for light output, in lux, to determine the winners. Kyle’s and Michael’s flashlight produced 132 lux. Galen Mayhew, Kevin Montambault, and Peter Ruimerman were the second-place team winners at 97 lux. Alayna Hutchinson, Mary Ollen, and Taylor Poggi finished third with 69 lux.

All members of winning teams may accumulate points over the season, and grand winners will be named in the spring based on their accumulated points.